Short Description: All about Kudzu! Learn the ecology, history, traditional and new uses of kudzu. We’ll make two types of baskets, rope, cordage, and process roots for medicine. 

Vegan meals and camping included!

Schedule

Friday Evening

Presentation about the ecology of kudzu, its history in the US and an overview on its many uses, both traditionally in Japan and its new uses here.

Vegan dinner & camping included.

Saturday

Vegan breakfast, lunch & dinner included, plus camping overnight.

In the morning, we'll get our hands on the amazing materials kudzu offers by processing vines of various ages, and making a classic vine spoke basket. In the afternoon, we will take fibers from the inner bark and the core, and make strong and useful rope and cordage. We will prepare a bunch of vine for use in a random weave style basket to be made on Sunday morning. In the late afternoon/evening on Saturday, we will process some roots for extracting the edible and medicinal starches. We will do a short presentation on kudzu paper making and handle some samples.

Sunday

Vegan breakfast & lunch included.

On Sunday morning we will make random weave baskets suitable for carrying home all of your new knowledge about kudzu!

Instructor

Jeff Gottlieb

Jeffrey Gottlieb, MS (in Biology), has been a Naturalist, Outdoor Educator and Primitive Skills Instructor for more than 40 years. He works with school groups, nature centers, museums, scout troops and summer camps, builds full-sized wigwams and longhouses and replicates primitive tools and artifacts for display. His areas of special interest include fiber arts, flintknapping, basketry, edible and utilitarian plants, and nature awareness. He travels widely in the Eastern U.S. teaching at rendezvous, gatherings and historic fairs. He has written a how-to manual on building wigwams, an instructors' manual entitled Teaching Primitive Skills to Children and a book on natural fibers and ropemaking called Fibers of Life. Books are available directly from him. He welcomes correspondence and can be reached via email at [email protected], or at 11 Horse Hills Lane, Whittier, NC, 28789. Check out his website at: www.theprimitivenaturalist.com.

About the Host Site

Rustling Roots, located at Cambia Community

Rustling Roots is a small-scale ecological education center located at Cambia Community in Louisa VA. We seek to empower individuals and communities to care for their land and understand the challenge of climate change, while providing practical skills needed for living on the land and regenerating local culture through community, sharing, theater and arts. Rustling Roots hosts hands-on educational opportunities including student field trips, youth programs, tours, workshops, summer camp with some overnight stays, internships, and artist residencies.

Bio: Cambia Community is a re-forming, income-sharing, intentional community in Louisa, VA. Cambia values ecological health, creating intentional family, deep connections, and supporting each other, our children, and our continued learning and personal growth. We’re off-grid, vegan, build our own shelters with local and natural materials, have fruit trees and a vegetable garden, and run a small-scale ecological education center called Rustling Roots. 

We are located within a thriving cluster of intentional communities, and together we are working toward a viable, regenerative alternative to the mainstream. These communities include Twin Oaks, Acorn, Living Energy Farm, and Serenity.